EPA Keeps Truckin' On Pollution Reductions: The EPA on Friday finalized a rule strengthening pollution protections on heavy trucks and buses. The new limits on greenhouse gas pollution will have the added effect of reducing deadly particulate and lung-harming nitrogen oxide (also known as NOx) pollution. The agency estimates the rule will prevent 1 billion metric tons of climate pollution from being released, which leads to $13 billion in benefits across the country in avoided deaths, hospitalizations, and missed work days. Those benefits will be most impactful in low-income and communities of color who are disproportionately likely to live near highways, in part because of the racist siting of interstate highways through communities of color. "Reducing emissions from our heavy-duty vehicles means cleaner air and less pollution. It means safer and more vibrant communities. It means lower fuel and maintenance costs for truck owners and operators. And it means healthier Americans," EPA Administrator Michael Regan said. (AP, Washington Post $, Axios, NPR, New York Times $, The Verge, The Hill, CNN, Politico Pro $, Heatmap $)

Southern Africa Drought Threatens Millions: Extreme drought across southern Africa is pushing hunger upon millions of people just over a year after multiple cyclones battered the region, the AP reports. The whiplash of extreme weather from extreme rain to drought is a hallmark of a climate destabilized by global warming, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels. In Malawi, a country of 20 million, UNICEF estimates 9 million people, half of them children, need help as a result of the drought. At least 2.7 million across Zimbabwe are officially threatened with hunger — a number expected to increase after the completion of nationwide crop assessment. In Mangwe, 39 year-old Zanyiwe Ncube, told the AP she would usually be harvesting crops for her two children and niece, but this year “We have nothing in the fields, not a single grain…" Because of the drought, "Everything has been burnt."  Traditional leader Joseph Nleya, 77, told the AP these are the hottest, driest, and most desperate conditions he can remember. "Dams have no water, riverbeds are dry and boreholes are few. We were relying on wild fruits, but they have also dried up …Hunger is turning otherwise hard-working people into criminals." (AP; Climate Signals background: Drought)

Heat Waves Moving Slower, Getting Bigger, Hotter, and More Frequent: Climate change is making heatwaves not only hotter, but effectively longer-lasting and larger in size, thus impacting more people, a new study finds. The research, published Friday in Science Advances, revealed heat domes — concentrations of high pressure air that drive up surface temperatures — move across the Earth's surface 20% slower than they did in 1979, subjecting the people (and everything else) under them to their heat for longer. The study also found the area covered by heat domes is larger, the temperatures are hotter, and global heatwaves are happening 67% more often than in 1979. Extreme heat is one of the clearest signals of climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, and its deadliest impact. “Those heat waves are traveling slower and slower so that basically means that ... there’s a heat wave sitting there and those heat waves could stay longer in the region,” Wei Zhang of Utah State University, one of the study's authors, said. “And the adverse impacts on our human society would be huge and increasing over the years.” (AP, New York Times $, AFP; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: Group to monitor air pollution in 12 US cities with large Hispanic populations (Yale Climate Connections), Is Guyana’s oil a blessing or a curse? (New York Times $), The Port of Baltimore tore this community apart long before the Key Bridge collapse (Capital B News), Will the electric vehicle push bring Black Americans along on the ride? (Capital B News)

GEOENGINEERING: NOAA gets dire warning about solar geoengineering (Politico), Can we engineer our way out of the climate crisis? (New York Times $)

GOP vs. ESG: ESG funds under attack: Why Republicans are targeting socially responsible investing (Democracy Now)

BIG OIL: ExxonMobil accused of ‘greenwashing’ over carbon capture plan it failed to invest in (The Guardian), Oil workers for BP win long-running legal battle over pensions (Houston Chronicle)

CAR CULTURE: As some countries spurn cars, the US continues to embrace highways (NBC)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: The IRA's new conventional wisdom (TIME)

AGENCIES: US judge refuses to block new FEMA flood insurance rate overhaul (Reuters)

EPA: EPA faults environmental review for TVA power plant (E&E $)

DOE: Biden administration to hand out $4B in advanced energy tax credits (Politico Pro $), Red states push court to block Biden LNG pause (E&E $)

DOI: Biden administration strengthens Endangered Species Act protections weakened under Trump (CNN, AP, New York Times $, The Hill, Reuters, Inside Climate News, E&E $)

DOT: US judge strikes down Biden highway climate rule for states (Reuters)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden’s oil boom (Reuters)

THE HILL: GOP climate leader pitches marine carbon removal as fossil fuel fix (E&E $), The gas industry gutted green building codes. Now, Republicans want to go further. (HuffPost)

POLITICS: Ex-Obama officials rue missed chances on climate action (Politico), Meet the new Find Out PAC. It’s named that for a reason. (The 19th* News)

ELECTIONS: Election of Donald Trump ‘could put world’s climate goals at risk’ (The Guardian)

CITIES AND STATES: Chart: Which states support community-led clean energy the most? (Canary Media), Maine House throws cold water on proposal to coax better performance from CMP, Versant (Maine Morning Star), Minnesota regulators approve Xcel’s scaled-back EV-charging plan (E&E $), New Mexico regulators approve El Paso Electric $11M EV plan, including low-income rebates (Utility Dive), NYC congestion pricing clears hurdle, set to start in June (E&E $), Washington state will become first state to ban lead in cookware (Environmental Health News)

• CALIFORNIA: California regulator takes income-based electric bills off the table (Canary Media), California regulators propose rules to discourage gas in new homes (E&E $), Oil industry lawsuit asks to hit brakes on California data reporting law (E&E $)

IMPACTS: Puerto Rico declares an emergency as cases of dengue fever spike (Grist), Midwest maple syrup producers adapt to record warm winter, uncertainty as climate changes (Wisconsin Watch), Climate change is delaying world clocks' need for a 'negative leap second (NPR), Copernicus online portal offers terrifying view of climate emergency (The Guardian), The home insurance market is crumbling. These owners are paying the price (CNN)

• BU$INE$$ OPPORTUNITY: Easter egg prices soar as cocoa crops are hit by climate crisis and exploitation (The Guardian), It's not your imagination — chocolate has been getting more expensive (NPR), Pricier Easter bunnies and eggs. Half-dipped Kit Kats. What's up with chocolate? (NPR)

HEAT: Fighting extreme heat, countries start low-cost programs (E&E $)

WILDFIRES: Black summer fires: a veteran ecologist says Australia’s bushfire modelling is flawed. Others disagree (The Guardian)

DROUGHT: It takes a village: The Indian farmers who built a wall against drought (The Guardian)

WATER: Green groups float Colorado River proposal (Politico Pro $), A river in flux (Inside Climate News)

DEFORESTATION: In Indonesia, deforestation is intensifying disasters from severe weather and climate change (AP)

RENEWABLES: In Texas, ex-oil and gas workers champion geothermal energy as a replacement for fossil-fueled power plants (Texas Tribune)

MINING: Mining fight on the Okefenokee Swamp’s edge may have only just begun (Inside Climate News)

LNG: The climate scientist fossil-fuel companies can’t stand (Wall Street Journal $), Canada 'not interested' in investing in LNG facilities, energy minister says (Reuters)

TRASH FIRES: Forever chemicals from a forever fire (Inside Climate News)

FOSSIL FUEL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS: Why some conservatives think EVs are bad for the environment (E&E $)

NUKES: 'We will incinerate the planet': Why some say nuclear power's moment is now (Axios), New Mexico nuke waste site offers lessons for others (Axios)

UTILITIES: With energy demand surging, utilities fall back on their old standby: fossil fuels (Grist)

GRID: In the central US, an electric grid bottleneck persists (Columbus Dispatch), MISO seeks FERC approval for new capacity accreditation process to bolster grid reliability (Utility Dive)

KEY BRIDGE: $60M and a giant crane: Resources pour in for Baltimore after bridge collapse (E&E $), What we know and don’t know about pollution from the Key Bridge collapse (Washington Post $)

AGRICULTURE: Senegal relies on rice imports. Can a farming method change that? (Context)

SHIPPING: A first step toward a global price on carbon (New York Times $)

BOOKS: ‘Saving Ourselves’ author says we can’t wait on global leaders to save the climate (Yale Climate Connections review), The book that explains how the Biden administration sees the world (Heatmap $)

CARBON CAPTURE: Oil field services giant bets $380M on CCS (E&E $)

POP CULTURE WARS: Why Billie Eilish insists on sustainability in her career: ‘It’s a never-ending f–king fight’ (Billboard), Billie Eilish criticizes ‘wasteful’ musicians who release multiple vinyl editions (The Hill), With ‘Cowboy Carter,’ Black country music fans are front and center, at last (The 19th* News)

POPE: Pope’s Easter speech renews calls for peace in Gaza, Ukraine (Washington Post $, Reuters)

WILDLIFE: Building healthier habitats to resist the impacts of climate change (CBS), Once lost to science, these 'uncharismatic' animals are having their moment (NPR), Report: US bee farms are buzzing (Axios, Washington Post $)

INTERNATIONAL: Angry farmers are reshaping Europe (New York Times $), Conservative premiers go to war with Trudeau climate tax (E&E $)

• Companies that care about climate change, need to care about their banking (The Hill, Alec Connon op-ed)
• Don’t give up on green hydrogen (Utility Dive, Clay Norris op-ed)
• Open Hydrogen Initiative releases toolkit to measure facility-specific hydrogen carbon intensity (Utility Dive, Emma Penrod op-ed)
• Poland power firms burn less coal but still lift output (Reuters, Gavin Maguire column)
• An idyll on the shores of a toxic lake (New York Times, Jaime Lowe essay $)
• PFAS is an almost impossible problem to tackle—and it’s probably in your food (Inside Climate News, Kyla Bennett interview)
• Your laptop will soon fight climate change (Boston Globe, Steven Wofsy op-ed $)
• How green energy makes us vulnerable to cyberattack (Wall Street Journal, Allysia Finley op-ed $)
• The coming electricity crisis (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• Green shareholders try to sabotage America’s energy industry (Wall Street Journal, Michael Toth op-ed $)

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up to receive Hot News every morning!

Send updates or feedback to nkauffman@climatenexus.org
Submit events and other items for consideration for a First Look using this form
Some articles require logins or subscriptions ($)